That Time Ghaz Hated Halloween
by Firdre
Summary: Detective David Ghaznavi doesn't have a Halloween phobia. It's called being a grown man with a job and better things to do than enable Erik's childish obsessions. Companion short to 'Deceptive Cadence.' Leroux-inspired modern AU. Not so dark. Collab.


**31 October 2006**

David Ghaznavi's cell phone buzzes insistently.

' _Look, they make you sign a waiver. That's how you know it's a good one.'_

Ignore. Delete.

' _Unless you're too chicken. That's what it is, isn't it?'_

Ignore. Delete.

' _Big, whiny baby.'_

Ignore. Delete.

' _Scaredy-cat.'_

Eyes narrowing, David finally jabs a response into the keypad of his cell phone. ' _You're wasting your time.'_

' _Your problem is you don't appreciate the art of the haunted house.'_

' _My problem is that I'm a grown man who has more important things to do than pay college drama students in cheap masks to chase me.'_

' _What about a corn maze? Those aren't scary at all.'_

' _No.'_

' _A hay ride?'_

' _No.'_

' _Pumpkin carving. Everyone loves pumpkins.'_

' _Are you done?'_

' _What sort of miserable childhood did you have to make you into such a Halloween grinch? You're unbearably depressing.'_

Ignore. Delete.

David snaps his phone shut and tosses it onto a stack of reports and resumes skimming a logfile. It buzzes a few more times with incoming texts, but he doesn't bother to read them. Five minutes later it goes silent.

Finally.

He takes a victorious sip of coffee.

Just when he's starting to forget about the conversation, his phone buzzes loudly again, only this time someone is calling.

Dammit, Erik.

Without taking his eyes off his screen, he snatches up his phone, declines the call, and powers off the device.

A few minute later, his office phone rings.

He snatches up the receiver without thinking, halfway through the second ring.

"Playing hard to get?" Darius asks, before he can open his mouth. David can hear the smile in his voice.

"Oh, hey. Sorry about that. I thought it was someone else. That friend of mine is…"

"Being himself?"

"More or less. He's badgering me to go with him to some Halloween thing tonight."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Oh I don't know—a haunted house or a pumpkin ride or something like that. I told him no." David kills the last of his coffee. Gives up on the logfile and switches screens to give his inbox a once-over.

"What for? You should go."

The very first message is a promotion for a horror film festival, forwarded by one of Erik's sockpuppet accounts.

Delete.

He mentally backtracks. "Wait, did I just hear you actually agree with Erik? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?"

"I think it is." Darius fake-shudders. "Scary, huh? But that actually sounds like fun. I've been seeing ads for that new haunted asylum in Bedford all month. It looks great. You have to sign a waiver. We can grab a drink when you get off and then meet up with Erik there."

Work e-mail. Work e-mail.

David pauses. "I'd really rather not."

"Why not? I know you're not doing anything tonight."

More files forwarded from Missing Persons. Nothing urgent.

"Yeah, well, there's a reason for that."

"What, that you have a deathly fear of having fun? Seriously, I don't get it."

David sighs. "I'm just not a big fan of Halloween. I never have been. It's- it's childish. It's-"

"You just don't like being scared," Darius interrupts. "Admit it."

"I will not."

"Are too."

"I'm not scared, and that doesn't even make sens-"

"Are too. And before you say anything else, remember that I've seen the way you watch scary movies."

This conversation was getting away from him. "Look D, I have to let you go. I am absolutely swamped with work here."

"Uh-huh, sure you are," Darius says, laughing. "Talk to you later."

"Bye," he hangs up before Darius can sneak a last word in.

Damn Erik.

Needing to stretch his legs, David logs off the computer and grabs his jacket off of the back of the chair. The poky little room which the computer crimes division optimistically called their 'office' was located in the basement, in what used to be a storage room for old paper files and other various odds and ends. He skirts around the floor buffer on his way out. It was a short elevator ride to the ground floor.

"I'm running out for another coffee," he calls out to Janine, the officer on receptionist duty. In honor of the season, her desk had been festooned with a paper garland of happy smiling skeletons and cheerful pumpkins. "I've got my phone if anyone needs me."

"You know your kidneys are going to explode one day," she says wryly as he passes, without looking up.

There's a bare edge of cold in the air that creeps right through even his best Burberry overcoat. David stuffs his hands in his pockets to keep them warm. It's two blocks to the nearest coffee shop.

When he touches the door handle, something screams.

He jumps, heart already halfway up his throat, before he realizes he's stepped on one of those 'festive,' plastic, screaming doormats.

A graveyard full of happy pumpkins grin up at him from beneath his feet. It screams again, tinny and artificial.

David yanks the door open with more force than is strictly necessary.

He orders a double-shot latte from the young girl behind the counter. She's wearing a headband with tiny bats on springs sticking out of it. They bounce and weave enthusiastically as she nods at him, grinning the grin of the overly-caffeinated.

"Busy today... Kelly?" he asks, dredging the depths of his memory for her name and hoping she doesn't notice the hesitation.

He's been making an effort to be kinder to customer service people since meeting Darius, who seemed to know the name of every waiter, barista, and bus driver in the tri-county area.

"Nah, I think everybody's out getting their Halloween kicks," she says, handing back his change. The bats give an excited wobble. "Get your fix in now, because if it stays like this we're going to close early. A bunch of us are going to hit up that haunted house in Bedford. I heard that last weekend they actually had to take one guy away in an ambulance." Her eyes are bright with glee.

"How fun," David says weakly.

"What about you, doing anything exciting tonight?"

"God, I hope not."

He drops some money in the tip jar and claims his latte from the stoic-looking man on the steamer. Happy grinning skeletons bob over his head.

Which reminds him to be surprised that he has yet to hear anything else from Erik. It isn't like the man to give up on an idea once he's gotten his teeth into it.

He digs his phone out of his pocket. No messages. No missed calls.

David knows he isn't remotely that lucky.

He shoulders open the door, stepping over the screaming doormat on his way out. Sticks the hand not currently holding a drink in back in his pocket and traces his fingers idly over the edge of the phone as he walks, halfway expecting it to vibrate any moment. The sudden radio-silence makes him far more uneasy than any amount of badgering.

As if on cue, his phone buzzes.

With something like triumph, David snatches it out of his pocket before it's even finished vibrating. He pauses under a store awning, taking a bit of shelter from the chilly wind.

To his surprise, the text is from Darius.

' _Sorry if I was an insensitive jerk about your completely legitimate Halloween phobia. Still want to come over tonight?'_

David's eyes narrow at the screen. ' _For what?'_ he shoots back.

' _You should get that paranoia looked at. How about candy duty and movies? I pick one you pick one.'_

David considers. No doubt Darius would pick something Halloween-themed, but in return David could finally get him to sit through _The Man Who Laughs_.

He could put up with a few ghosts for Conrad Veidt… and for the look on Darius' face when David told him it was a silent film.

' _It's a date,'_ he sends, smirking, before the other man has time to think about what he's offering.

Mood considerably improved, David hurries the rest of the way back to work.

He's nearly forgotten about Erik entirely by the time he steps inside the lobby, switching his coffee to the other hand to warm it. That is, until his phone buzzes again.

' _Last chance for the haunted house. Sure you don't want to go?'_

' _Positive. I've made plans already,'_ he answers quickly.

It isn't until the elevator doors are closing behind him, dropping him into the basement, that he feels a twinge of guilt at the brusque reply.

He glances at his phone again, though he hasn't felt it vibrate. No response.

Was it possible he had been too harsh earlier? Erik wouldn't be upset just because David didn't want to take part in his ridiculous obsession with Halloween, surely?

Then again, Erik never seemed to take rejection well.

Sighing, David texts an olive branch.

' _Coffee tomorrow though?'_

He snaps his phone shut and pulls up the logfile he'd abandoned earlier.

An hour passes without a response from Erik.

He wraps up fifteen minutes earlier than usual in order to beat traffic back to his apartment and grab the movie. While he's there, he changes into a new shirt—the burnt orange with the pointed collar under a black pullover—just to show Darius that he's capable of being festive when he wants to be.

His phone vibrates on the dresser.

' _No. Tomorrow isn't Halloween.'_

David rolls his eyes.

' _Suit yourself,'_ he sends back, as he heads out the door.

The sun has just started to set when he pulls up outside of Darius' house, set back in its quiet little suburban neighborhood. The first wave of over-eager trick-or-treaters have already hit the sidewalks, and David waits for an energetic Spiderman and two pirates to cross the driveway before pulling in.

When he gets out of the car, he quickly regrets not wearing anything more substantial than a pullover. The temperature has dropped further since the afternoon, and a chilly wind rattles the bare branches on the trees. It sends leaves scuttling down the sidewalk, catching around his feet as he hurries up to the front door.

Before he can raise a hand to knock, David realizes that the front door is hanging open slightly.

Distantly, he can hear children laughing.

"Darius?" he calls, sticking his head around the door. "Did you know your door was open?"

Inside, the house is dark except for the distant shadow of a flickering television in the other room.

"Darius?" he says again, louder.

The only other sound is the low creak of the door as he pushes it open.

"If you jump out at me I promise I will hit you in the face," David says loudly, stepping into the foyer and feeling for a light switch.

Something crackles and crunches under his feet. Halloween candy, he realizes, frowning down at the shapes on the hardwood in the dim light from the open door.

David gropes for the lightswitch by the door. Something hard and furry with too many legs brushes his searching hand. He jerks back with a choked yelp, eyes searching through the gloom. A large shape, blacker than black, on the wall. Beside it, the outline of the switch plate. He quickly darts out a hand.

The hall light blinks on.

Hanging next to the switch is a large fuzzy toy spider.

A Halloween decoration.

Breathing deeply, he rolls his eyes a little at himself, briefly glad Darius didn't see that.

With the light on, David can see fun-sized bags of Skittles spilled all over the tile of the entryway. A large plastic cauldron lays empty on its side next to the open door. It rattles across the floor before catching against the wall as the wind picks up again.

"Darius?" he calls again, a hint of concern threading through his voice.

There is a muffled thud from the back of the house.

Closing the door behind him, David crosses the entryway and rounds a corner into the living room where the flickering shadow of the television is coming from, wishing his mouth wasn't suddenly so dry.

"This isn't remotely funny," he says, with as much dignity as he can manage.

The living room is empty as well.

On the television, _Night of the Living Dead_ is playing on mute. A little girl crouches over the remains of a man, her face smeared with monochrome blood.

He's always hated this movie. When he was a kid, his brothers used to chase him around the yard, lumbering like zombies and moaning, "They're coming to get you! They're coming to get you!"

On the screen, the girl lurches toward the camera.

David grabs for the remote and turns the television off.

He fumbles to turn on a table lamp in the sudden darkness. It clicks on.

It's then that he notices the blood.

There's a long smear of it across the beige carpet on the other side of the couch, dark and still faintly wet, like something had been dragged.

It led down the hallway towards the guest bedroom.

Glancing down the hallway in the dim light from the lamp, he can see that the console table that normally sits up against the wall has been pulled over, blocking the path. Half-broken picture frames are scattered across the floor.

Heart hammering in his throat, David pulls out his phone and dials emergency services. His thumb hovers over the 'send' button, hesitating, as he steps over the legs of the console table. If this was a prank he'd never hear the end of it.

He tries to ignore the thought that even Darius wouldn't go this far for a practical joke.

He keeps his back close to the wall, trying to remember all of the things they'd practiced for a 'search and clear' during training, and cursing himself for never carrying his gun anymore. There's a reason he took a nice, safe desk job the moment he could get it. He clears the bathroom as he passes it, shutting the door behind him.

The door to the guest bedroom is closed, but a bright red spray of blood leads up the frame.

Sucking in a couple of deep breaths, he reaches for the doorknob, keeping as much of his body out of the doorway as the narrow hall will allow. The door swings open easily.

It's a moment before he remembers that the walls inside are not supposed to be red.

David stumbles back against the door-frame, his own breathing suddenly harsh in his ears. His shoes slide, slipping on a puddle of something slick and red, and he lands hard on the floor. The red leeches into his pants and clings, sticky and still faintly warm, to his hands.

Blood, he thinks numbly. The room was covered in blood.

It's like a horror movie come to life. Blood is splattered across the walls and the bed, dripping from the curtains. He can just make out the garish, yellow, daisy pattern on the comforter peeking out from beneath a massive pool of it.

His eyes follow a rivulet of blood as it drips slowly down the side of the bed-frame to the floor.

That's when he notices the body.

" _Darius?"_

Darius is lying face-down on the floor just on the other side of the bed. His dark hair is matted with red.

Somehow his phone is still clutched tight in his hand. David jabs the 'send call' button with shaking fingers and half crawls, half scrambles across the room, sliding on blood and other things he doesn't want to think about.

Darius doesn't move. David can't tell if he's breathing or not. He can't see an injury but there's _so much blood_ — _he couldn't possibly still be_ —but if he was still alive he shouldn't move him-

His phone gives a low tone. _Call dropped_ , it says. Unthinking, he dials 911 again and hits 'send'.

 _Call dropped._

His phone was being jammed.

Before the thought can fully register, there's a quiet footstep behind him. He has a second to recall—in a blinding flash of panic—the muffled thud he heard when he first entered the house and to think _there's someone else here_ —before long arms wrap around him from behind.

David lets out an undignified sound, something between a yelp and a shriek of terror.

"Surprise!" Erik cackles in his ear before pulling away.

David struggles to his feet, panting, his eyes darting from Erik to the body on the floor, adrenaline making his knees weak. "What- you-"

"They're coming to get you… _David._ " Erik stands between him and the door to the hallway with a hand on his hip and a familiar face twisted into a sharp, hideous grin. His eyes are bright with manic gleam. "Happy Hallow-"

The end of the sentence is lost as David's closed fist connects with Erik's head in a savage right hook, sending Erik reeling back against the door frame.

"Fuck you! I have never hated _anyone_ more than I hate you right this minute," David seethes, shaking out his hand.

But Erik is bent-over on the floor, laughing like a hyena, palm pressed to his mouth. When he peels his hand away, it's dabbed with blood. It's only as he gingerly tweaks the bridge of his false nose that the laughter dies momentarily. "Dude! _That was my nose_ ," he hisses with a pointed glance toward the body at his feet. "For goodness' sake, Ghaz… Lighten up!"

On the floor nearby, he suddenly hears Darius wheezing with laughter. "That was amazing," he says weakly. "I wish I had that scream on camera."

David stares down in disbelief. Darius rolls to his back, wiping red away from his eyes with his sleeve, trying to regain his composure.

"This isn't funny! I thought you were dead!"

"Aren't you the one who wanted me and Erik to do more things together?"

"To get _coffee…_ to see a _movie_ —like normal people!"

"Does this mean you hate Darius, too?" Erik interjects with such put-on innocence that David wants to punch him again. "Because this was his idea, you know. I'm an accessory at best-"

"You stay out of this-"

"Hey, I was just going to scare him," Darius says to Erik. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was your idea." He continues to rub more fake blood from his face, then glances around. "This had better not stain."

"I don't care whose idea it was. I hate you both," David snarls, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

"...Stain?" Erik echoes with an uneasy grin streaked with actual blood.

"Yeah. As in this has better not."

"As I recall, Darius, you wanted it to be convincing..."

"No, _you_ wanted it to be convincing!"

David pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm never speaking to either of you again. Never," he mutters. It was mostly directed at himself. There was no point in talking to either of them once they started in on each other.

"You're getting rather upset over nothing, Darius. This carpet, for one, is dreadful and should have been destroyed ages ago. I've done you a favor."

"It's my mother's carpet! She's going to kill me."

"In the hallway, one can only hope. That wallpaper ought to go, too, while we're on the subject."

"Like I'm going to trust the taste of a man wearing a tuxedo skeleton tee."

" 'Don't stain my carpet! Don't wear sensible, festive clothing to my staged murder!' See if I ever work with _you_ again!"

There's a house-rattling thud as David slams the front door on his way out.

/

 **1 November 2006**

David Ghaznavi's cell phone buzzes insistently.

He ignores it, and merges with the afternoon, southbound traffic as he pulls out onto the highway.

Barely a day into the eminently more sensible month of November and David has thus far had the distinct satisfaction of avoiding Those Who Are Dead To Him. A single text from Darius that morning, asking if he wanted to get lunch that afternoon. Promptly deleted. Not that it would have mattered if he'd kept it.

His phone buzzes again.

He ignores it.

There was no point in blocking any of Erik's phone numbers. He'd just find more. And a steady deluge of texts means David can passively monitor where Erik's mind is. David has professional contacts to maintain, after all.

At the next light, he chances a glance at his phone.

' _Update: fine, I talked with the vendor and the new carpet arrives this evening instead. You are impossible to please, do you know that?'_

A new text arrives even as he snaps shut his phone and tosses it onto his coat in the passenger seat.

Fifty-two and counting, and it was barely three in the afternoon.

David pulls down a street swimming with red-and-blue lights. A crowd of gawking onlookers congregate on the sidewalk opposite a squat, nondescript warehouse, the perimeter of which has been cordoned off by yellow police tape. A plucky journalist with a notepad and digital recorder is accosting the attending police officer who stands stoically at the entrance of the warehouse parking lot.

As David passes, he flashes his badge at the officer, who waves him into the lot.

A black body bag is being fed into the back of an ambulance as David steps out of his car. Nearby, beneath a kitschy sign spray-painted directly onto the brick wall of the warehouse designating the 'Screamatorium on 13th,' a pallid man in faded black clothing and too many piercing speaks animatedly on his phone. David catches words like "lawyer" and "not my fault" amid an otherwise unprintable stream of rhetoric.

Dodging the flash of a camera, David keeps his back to the crowd and heads for the warehouse entrance.

"Owner," the first responder grunts with a jerk of his head as David approaches. "Second guy they've carried out on a stretcher in two weeks."

"I presume both signed a waiver."

"Something like that. Straight down the hallway, Detective."

/

The security office of the Bedford haunted house is an unremarkable little rabbit hutch of a space that David suspects was a custodial closet in a previous life. It's dismaying how at-home he feels in this claustrophobic space, kneeling on the floor unhooking cords and peripherals from the desktop box beneath the desk, surrounded by wall-mounted TFT-LCD screens.

He is carefully labelling an evidence bag full of color-coded cables when he feels a presence suddenly looming in the doorway. Instinctively, he glances over his shoulder.

Caucasian male with dark hair, just under six feet. Thin, mid-twenties, black eyes, unremarkable features. He doesn't know the face, but he recognizes that black, leather motorcycle jacket. It creaks as the man leans in the doorway, and crosses his arms over his chest with an insufferable smirk.

"Why, fancy meeting you here..." the man says.

It was Erik. Of course it was.

David returns to bagging and tagging in silence.

"Do they really expect you to haul all this back to the station on your own?" Erik persists. "There must be at least five boxes' worth of-"

With a little more force than necessary, David rips off a strip of colored tape and slams the roll against the floor. "I never want to see you, nor ever speak to you again," he snapped. "I thought I made that very clear."

"What, you were being serious?"

David doesn't dignify this with a response. He deliberately puts his back to the door and resumes his work in silence. For one brief, blissful moment there is peace and quiet. Erik destroys it with a long, torturous sigh.

"Well, this is terrible news. Disastrous, even."

David noisily tears another anti-static evidence bag from the roll and seals an external hard drive inside.

"It's shaping up to be a real tragedy, actually. You see, I happen to have a pair of VIP tickets to the opening gala night of _Tosca_ at the Opera next week…"

David feels an unpleasant buzzing in his head and stomach. Those had been sold out for months and, suffice to say, his bank account was still recoiling from the attempt. Against his better judgment, he glances over his shoulder to see Erik retrieving something from the inner pocket of his coat.

It's a crisp box office envelope, which he proceeds to hold aloft between two long fingers.

"Cocktail reception, black-tie dinner... Anyone who is anybody is going to be there." Erik pauses, then heaves another one of his inescapable sighs. "A pity you're no longer in a position to tell me who might be able to take these off my hands..."

Slowly, David gets to his feet. As casually as he can-as far away as he can-he reaches out to take the envelope. His fingers brush the edge just as Erik jerks the prize behind his back.

"Are we friends again?" Erik asks in a low voice.

David keeps his face and voice carefully impassive while he scrutinizes a perfectly-manicured cuticle. "Perhaps."

"I'm _so_ relieved."

David, of course, scrutinizes the print on the tickets once they're in hand and, to his immense satisfaction, everything is in order. Once deposited safely into the pocket of his Burberry coat, he hazards one last glance in Erik's direction.

"I'm sure you've noticed the miles of police tape outside..." he warns.

"Is there? How interesting."

"Suit yourself."

Having discharged his obligations, David settles back into the business of wrangling hard drives. If Erik wanted to be arrested, that was his prerogative. At least David would have ring-side seats if it happened. When he next peers into the hallway, fortunately—or unfortunately; he couldn't decide which—Erik has improved the place by vacating.

Confident his phone would remain quiet for the rest of the day, David is now free to contemplate the most wonderful time of the year and—more importantly—just how many red-and-green tinseled garlands _exactly_ would fit in Erik's precious Maserati.

* * *

 **A/N: In addition for feeling bad about for the wait between chapters, we _also_ felt bad for the distinct lack of Ghaz in the last chapter of 'Deceptive Cadence' after how many reviewers have commented they excited were to see him. So we teamed up with the creator of Ghaz (agoodflyting on Tumblr/Flyting on AO3) to pen a short "prequel" one-shot that we hope amuses you at the very least. Thank you for reading! You guys are awesome!**


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